Seven figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast.
Experience is your host, John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger and transform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
What up?
What up brother?
How are you?
Hey, I'm good man.
How are you?
Good, good.
Welcome everybody.
Thank you guys for tuning in.
Um.
We built agent to CEO going into 2019.
Um, really off of everything that we had been doing since 2004.
Kinder been doing since.
2000, right?
And so it was, um, just a lot of lessons learned, things that we
had experienced, things that we had coached and helped people experience.
And it was really all about just evolution.
And that's really where the agent to CEO concept really came from, was
just about evolving from an agent to really becoming the CEO, um, the
transformation that happens not only in your business but in your life, right?
Because.
It's not necessarily al always about achieving the goal, but it
is about who you become on the way to achieve that goal, right?
Who do you have to become?
What habits do you have to let go of?
What habits do you have to create in order for you to get to, to that point?
So it, it's, it's just really a more so mindset first with, with everything.
It's always mindset first.
So the agency, CEO mindset, and.
I wanna get into really what the power hour, uh, that, that I wanna talk about.
I wanna hit on some, some topics, how it aligns to the agent CEO concept and model.
Oh, but there were a couple things that were popping usually on, uh, one big fire.
We dive into kind of trending topics, things that are happening.
But I would love to get your take on a couple things, Joel.
As we're seeing, um, a lot of shifts and a lot of, a lot of changes, I
wanted to, um, kick off by what I just saw, um, from real estate news.
Just put out really with, you know, Gary, Gary being Gary, and there was
something that he had alluded to.
Here in the, um, talking about a couple things to focus on and would love to.
Get your, take a hot take on this real quick, and then any, any
perspective that you guys have.
Can you, Joel, can you see the housing wire article?
Yep.
So, Gary's alluding to lead generation will lead to success in, in a
slow market, uh, as always, right?
Always, always be focusing on the lead generation side of things.
And there was another statistic that was, came out, um, earlier.
That I saw from, um, Chris Smith.
I don't know if you saw this crazy article, did you?
Uh, we, we will come back to this, this, this, uh, somebody got a, a pig
pig's head on their, on their doorstep.
Um, I don't know if this is where it's at.
It'll tie to it.
Now.
There was some statistics that I loved, um, that I wanted to talk about.
No, we'll, we'll come back to that.
So, but Oh, I know where it was.
I'll pull that up here in a second.
Um, but looking at what, what Gary's talking about, and there were some things
kind of being faced that he was alluding to, uh uh, this isn't the one standby.
Because this is, uh, this is really interesting.
Hot take.
Okay.
So, um, obviously Gary B. Gary B and Gary talked about there are empires being built
right now on the bones of individuals who won't get outta bed and go to work.
And he said the ones that focus on treating real estate like a JOB
are the ones that are gonna thrive.
And that's the set hours, man, that's like, it's, it's, is it the 24 7?
Is it the Alzheimer's?
What, what is it gonna really take to, to navigate the terrain right now?
To be able to get ahead?
Not, not, not just survive, but truly create some separation.
What does that look like right now?
What would you say?
Right, because just like Gary's saying here, I mean there homes are being sold.
Why not us?
Why not us out there getting it?
And that's that honey badger mentality.
That's the agent to CEO mindset.
It's like, I'm gonna go get my fair share,
but what's the commitment?
Right?
You can't be interested.
I'm not asking you to be obsessed, but what is the level of commitment required
right now to create some separation and some momentum in this market?
Yeah, I I, I totally, I totally agree.
We, we've talked before, um, about this idea of interested,
committed, and obsessed, right?
And, and for the last 10 years, or most of the last 10 years, being interested in.
Real estate success was enough to get you some measure of
real estate success, right?
You were doing enough deals to make a decent living.
Um, you rode the market up and all those agents are, are riding
the market, you know, down too.
So being interested, I think in, in 2025, certainly 2026.
Being interested in, in real estate success isn't, isn't
gonna be good enough anymore.
It's about being committed.
I totally agree.
I think the obsessed, that's the 24 7 that you're talking about,
there's always gonna be those people.
I think that the, the.
Big teams that have been obsessed for years are going to, are
gonna keep grabbing market share.
Um, but the, the agents who are committed have an incredible opportunity right now.
Uh, Hormoz talks about this.
A lot of other guys are, are too right now, but, um, the
bar, the bar's pretty low.
For, uh, for what your competition is doing.
Uh, you, you know, uh, broadly in real estate.
And so I kind of like the, I kind of like the idea of like committed, looks like the
job showing up every single day, uh, which is the foundation of running a business,
which is what we're talking about with agent to CEO show showing up every day.
Growing your business.
When you can fire yourself from one job and make a hire, you
do that, but you don't stop.
You just move into higher, higher leveraged activities, and then when
you can offload something else to a va, to ai, to an agency, to a fractional.
You move on and, and spend more and more of your time.
If you're not spending any less time, the, the idea that you're gonna spend
less time is years or decades down the road for most of the people who
are, who are gonna be on this call and who are gonna be at, at the event.
And so, you know, you have to build something that's sustainable.
And in order to do that, I think committed is the exact right word.
So, you know, are you, are you showing up at the same time every day?
Have you mastered your calendar?
Are you prospecting in the morning and hitting appointments in the evenings?
Are you putting time in your calendar for critical thinking?
Which I, I think that's something you've really been preaching this
past year especially, which I love.
Thinking about the business, thinking about the problems, thinking about
the strategy, are you putting some time in your calendar to focus on AI
learning what's possible, learning some capabilities, um, implementing
and integrating it into your business?
Uh, yeah, it's absolutely committed and I think a, a
great way to start with that is.
All right.
What, what are you doing for the, the nine to 12 hours that you're
supposed to be working today?
Yeah, no, that one of the things that you said right there that I think if
more, uh, I, I want your take on this
agent to CEO if you were building a plan to constantly be, be
putting yourself out of a job.
Meaning like what you just said right there, right in the beginning.
You do everything right.
You have the ideas, you manage the ideas, you execute the ideas.
I mean, you do everything.
You turn the lights on, you make the coffee, you take the trash
out, you, you know, nothing is, is too big and nothing is too small.
And then you get to a point to where.
Now you have that thought partner, somebody that's, you know, you're able to
bounce ideas off, make quicker decisions.
You get somebody to help support you on the TC side of things for, you know, a, a,
um, paper at closing type of thing, right?
There's a couple different facets of a couple different ways to go.
You can, you know, then start building out with maybe VA support, right?
A, a, you know, a a, a global.
Support team to help you, then you're empowering them with ai, then
maybe you make a, a, a, a critical hire maybe to help you on the
marketing and social side of things.
'cause I want to get into, um, a couple things that I was listening to Gary
V and the sauna this morning about.
That's, here's a funny story.
I'll, I'll tell you that in a second.
But you start to, to, to expand that out and all of a sudden
you're not doing TC work.
You're not doing marketing work other than the marketing strategy, the overview,
the maybe some of the, you, you gotta do the content, the production side
of things, but you're not doing the, you know, some of those activities.
You're getting the bookkeeping stuff off your plate, you're doing, you're getting
the operational stuff off your plate.
So you keep working yourself out of a job and then you work yourself
out of production and then you work at yourself out to now where
you're just head of company.
And then you know, the holy grail is instead of, you know, you working in the
business, you're working on the business, then you start to work over the business.
You're just a true owner of the business.
But most people don't think that way because.
Um, they, they typically build real estate as a lifestyle business, and
there, there's nothing wrong with that.
I just don't know how sustainable real estate as a lifestyle business
is moving into the next few years.
And if you read that article from Gary, his crystal ball prediction is things
ain't getting better till next summer.
So if that's true, that means we got another 12 months of this shit like.
Seatbelt on, buckle up, right?
So like, because I, it could get worse.
It could get worse.
It really, really could get worse before it starts to get even better.
So it's just some things to think about and the only way to handle a
crisis is to prepare for a crisis.
And that's the only way to deal with it, is you gotta prepare for it.
So, yeah.
Uh, I mean, what are, what are, what are your thoughts around, you know.
That in regards to that type of thinking and your take on, on lifestyle?
Yeah, I don't, I don't think, well, we'll get to, we'll get to lifestyle
kind of two, two parts there.
Um, talking about lifestyle, but you know, in the, what does
the next 12 months look like?
Um, you know, a really important piece of the agent to CEO process that.
It's kind of an undercurrent.
We don't really address it full.
There's not a session on.
Putting yourself in a good position, but, but that's what the process
does, is put you in a good position.
We're looking at our finances.
We're putting core capital aside.
Uh, we're running lean, um, you know, we're, we're leveraging ourself with ai,
with VAs, um, to keep payroll costs down.
We, we've got maybe additional funds set aside so that we can reinvest.
Uh, maybe we're doubling down on our most successful marketing campaigns.
There's all these things that, that.
Bubble up to the surface and strategy that put you in a good position.
Um, Shane Parrish talks a lot about this in clear thinking.
He uses Warren Warren Buffet as the example, and, and the, the, what
being in a good position means is you're never forced into a decision
that you don't want to make.
The market can't force you into it.
The competition can't force you into it.
Being in a good position means you're never forced into.
So people always rip on Warren Buffett for, uh, you know,
holding too much cash, right?
Or holding too much cash for too long.
But he always.
Is in a, in a good position where the market will never
force him to do anything.
He'll never get caught where he's gotta make a decision.
He doesn't want to sell a big position that he doesn't want to
have to sell because of the market.
He's always in a good position.
And so what are the things you can do to put yourself in a good position?
And a lot of the agent to CEO process.
Puts you in a position to win where again, the market's not forcing you to
make decisions you don't wanna make.
And, and the competition's not forcing you to make decisions.
You wanna make.
What's part of the market right now?
Well, AI is part of the market right now, so what's gonna happen there?
But again, being in a good position, being in a strong financial position,
being in a strong, uh, marketing position, being a strong people
position, all of these things.
Put you in a position, uh, of, of security, but also a flexibility
that when the time's right, you're ready to pounce on the opportunities.
Mm-hmm.
Whereas if we overextend ourselves when we're riding the market up and we
don't, we don't play a little bit safe.
We end up being way out of position when the market starts to turn.
And if you're out of position when the market starts to go down, you're gonna be
out of position when it starts to go up again and not able to capitalize on it.
So, uh, the, the agent to CEO process really puts you in, in, in a winning
position and a position of, of strength and, and control over your business.
Um, so that's the one thing In terms of, uh, what was, what
was the second part again,
more about, you know, a lot of agents have.
Built their business around lifestyle, right?
They'll generate 300,000 and they'll spend 304,000 and not like running and, and
falling in love with the p and l, right?
P and l, right?
They're, they're running an L, they ain't running no p. So it's, it's
really making sure that they start to really take into consideration
and, you know, one of the three.
Critical things for us that flip the switch for, for everything to, to to know.
The ability to escape production takes three things and the three things for us.
And one is, is knowing the numbers right?
And having a clear understanding of the key metrics and the numbers
you need to pay attention to.
So that's where I struggle a little bit.
Are are a little concerned.
Be, I mean, and I mean, shit.
We've all been guilty at times.
Right.
Especially entrepreneurs.
Sometimes we, we, we fall in love with and think that the growth of the
momentum is gonna keep happening and we forget, you know, the concept that
the only, only the paranoid survive.
And so we, we have to be able to step back.
And so any, any thoughts around or, or pump the brakes or a little caution
with, you know, the lifestyle folks?
Yeah.
I think, I think I.
Thinking through the idea of, of positioning would be really valuable
for people in a lifestyle business.
Um, and again, you're kind of, we're defining lifestyle business
as, um, you're, you're essentially.
Spending whatever revenue the business creates, either in the business or
more, more likely, your lifestyle.
So you sell more deals, make more money, your lifestyle increases a little bit.
You're not building, uh, an asset in the business.
Um, so I think positioning is a really important thing for people.
Uh, with a lifestyle business because maybe it is time to,
uh, to pull back a little bit.
So we're saving more for a down market where we're investing more
either in the business or in assets.
I think there's a, there's a a great
opportunity for lifestyle businesses.
You just can't have both.
And so a lifestyle business, if you want it to, to fund your lifestyle and then
fund your retirement, well then a big part of that lifestyle business has to be.
You know, generating income to acquire other assets that are
gonna help you, whether that's your stock portfolio, retirement
savings, real estate, whatever it is.
Where I think a lot of people are gonna get caught is they think they're building
a business that's gonna be valuable, but they're actually building a, a lifestyle
business and they're, they're, they don't know the difference between the
two and there's no intention behind it.
Lifestyle business is great if that's what you set out to do and
you've thought through it, and you know what it's gonna take for that
lifestyle business to generate enough income to then acquire other assets
or over the long term, um, great.
But that's a, that's a real option.
Uh, but if you think you're building a valuable asset, but you're
actually building a a on paper, not very valuable lifestyle business,
then I think those are the people who are gonna be in trouble here.
Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I think the only reason to have real estate
or build a real estate team is to just unlock other opportunities.
That's, that's the only thing that I believe, just because, you know.
Built up, you know, multiple seven figure figure real estate companies.
We actually sold one and, and y'all, y'all would laugh if, if, if you knew
what we sold it for, um, after all of the intellectual property, everything that was
there, like, it just, there's no value.
There's really no value, especially when you take and
you build the brand, which is.
Typically your name because it's so fast to get traction and build
trust instead of trying to build a, a, a brand that nobody knows.
Right.
I mean, Joel, you experienced that when you guys went, you know, and rebrand,
um, when, you know, you were, you were partners there in Milwaukee, and, and
so I just, I, you know, I stepped back and I've seen it too many times and.
The The real lesson.
The real lesson, and it's, you've heard me talk about this because this past
October was 20 years with kinder and, um, I, I reflected back as a coach.
How would I coach these 2 27, 20 8-year-old knucklehead.
That's, that's kind of the thought process that I went through, that if I had the
opportunity to coach us in oh four or oh five, how would I have coached us?
And we were so blinders on, on status and yeah, we were running and gunning,
but we were spending more than we were making back into the business.
We were tucking taking what we could.
And we wanted to have some nice things, but we weren't like being strategic in
understanding what we're trying to do.
We were just trying to fuel more growth.
Yeah.
Because we wanted to be number one.
Instead of, and this is how I would've coached us, I would've
said, boys, what's freedom?
'cause that's what you want to chase.
You want to chase freedom, you want to tra, you don't wanna chase status.
Lifestyle business is status.
What do you want to, what you want to chase is freedom.
You want to have the freedom to do whatever the hell you want
to do, whenever you want to do it with, when, with whomever.
You wanna do it whenever, wherever, just go.
And it's about having enough money coming in to where you're not
trading time for dollars because most of us are dancing bears.
If we don't dance, we don't get paid.
And we need revenue streams and we need, we need investments, we need money coming
in to where if we wanted to go off the grid for 60 days, nothing would slow down.
Nothing would stop.
And.
If we would've had somebody punching us in the mouth on
understanding, it's about freedom.
It's not about status.
Now, would we be on this call?
Probably not.
Right?
Like everything happens for a reason.
There's, there's, there's a master plan.
I, I'm, I'm all bought into that.
But if I was to coach us in that situation, that's how
I would've coached us and.
The other, Hey, quick pause before we keep going.
This market is shifting fast, and if you've been feeling the pressure, you're
not alone, but here's the thing, it's not going to slow down so you can catch up.
I've opened a limited number of executive one-on-one coaching spots this month for
agents who are ready to stop spinning their wheels and lead with clarity.
If that's you, head to John Kitchens coach and let's make it happen.
Now, back to the episode.
Another element of of freedom is my definition of freedom is two things.
You have enough money coming in that you're not trading time for dollars
and you're living your perfect day.
And the perfect day scenario is ultimately.
You know, really who you are at your core, and it's an incredible exercise.
We're, we're playing around with Perfect Day 2.0 because of, of AI to where you
can take a part of the vivid vision.
Joel, take a part of the vivid vision and the core identity exercise to really.
Put together through AI and have an AI ask you the questions one at a time
to where you lay out your perfect day.
Um, if you guys haven't read, buy Back Your Time by Dan Martel.
It's a, it's a, it's a almost a requirement because when you understand
the who not How concept from Dan Sullivan, then you get into the, the
buyback of your time from Dan Martel, and there's a segment in there in the
beginning to where he talks about Oprah.
And he lays out Oprah's Oprah's Day and Oprah's living her perfect day.
I mean, she literally lives the perfect day.
She works out twice a day.
She sips rose in the garden at noon with lunch.
She goes on walks with her dog dogs and her husband.
But she works.
She works.
And if everybody's honest, if you, if you had to live Groundhog Day.
But you get to design Groundhog Day, you would work two to four hours.
Everybody that's honest in that exercise, they all work two to
four hours, but Oprah works.
I think it's an hour, maybe two hours, but she only solves a
hundred thousand dollars problems.
Think about that.
That's it.
That's all she talks about.
That's all she does.
She solves a hundred thousand dollars problems minimum.
That's her.
That's her floor.
And when you have to think about that, you're like, listen,
like I know I'm gonna work.
So what problems do you wanna solve?
Who do you wanna work with?
The beauty of that, that's why it's called core identity, is
because you catch yourself.
You're like, man, I would never work with this person on my perfect day.
Then why the hell are you working with them today?
Man, I would never, I would never eat this on my perfect day.
Then why are you eating it?
I would never hang out with this person on my perfect day.
I would never talk about this on my perfect day.
Then why are you, that's where the core identity, and that's where
the changes start to happen, right?
That's who you have to become in order to live the life that you want to live.
So I, I'm, I'm super excited about, uh, uh, about coming together in Cleveland.
You know, obviously we can talk about this all, all night long.
Joel, any other thoughts around kind of that concept of, of the
business structure, business dynamics, and moving towards freedom?
Yeah, I think the, what, what's so powerful about the perfect day exercise
is you can put, you can put dollar amounts to your perfect day, right?
Well, what, what kind of house are you living in?
Well, we can put a dollar amount behind that.
What kind of car are you driving?
Um, who are you spending time with?
Where are, where are you, you know, hanging out?
Um, what are you working on and how much, and what kind
of income does that bring in?
And how much time?
You know, when you're not working, do you need to have income coming in for those?
And so, so we can, we can put dollar amounts behind your perfect day.
And now you've got the, now you've got the target.
Now we can say, I need this much money, which means I'm gonna
need this many assets producing this much income to get there.
All right, now we got a, now we have a number and you talk about
this a lot, the freedom number.
And now we can design our business to get us to the freedom number.
So that lifestyle business, now we could say, Hey, I got a
lifestyle business right now.
But if I either cut back on the spending or increase revenue without
increasing spending, now I can make real progress towards my, towards
that freedom number, which is, you know, gonna get me to the perfect day.
Or if we're earlier on, we're still a solo agent, we've got a small team,
we can say what, what needs to happen?
How many transactions are we gonna need to do at what profit margin?
How many agents are we gonna need to do that?
Many transactions?
You can start to design your business.
Intentionally in a way that's gonna get you to that end goal.
But you have to get crystal clear on that goal.
So the perfect day is the right place to start because we can reverse engineer
the perfect day into the freedom number and then we can build a business
around getting to the freedom number.
So I just, I love the, ah, I love it.
I love the continuity of it and I love the intentionality and, um.
And, and for a lot of people the, that, when you really do that math, the
freedom number is a lot smaller than, than we think at first, you know, every
time my freedom number doesn't involve having five VA vacation houses, right?
It's got my house and it's got a, the place up north on
the lake, like that's mine.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
So it, we, you could get there a lot faster.
And now if you said, Hey, maybe you don't have to do 30 years of your lifestyle
business, put in away 10% of your income every year to finally get there.
Maybe you could do it in five years.
What would it look like to do it in five years where you put 80% of your income
away or, you know, whatever that is.
But you can start to make those decisions.
And then you always say, which I love, you know, commit, commit,
uh, or you don't believe in, you know, commit and then figure it out.
It's, it's figure out what it's gonna take and then decide are
you willing to pay that price?
So maybe you could do it in five years, but you're not willing to pay that price.
Great.
Do it in 10 years.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but the point is you can have intentionality behind it
once you do those exercises.
No, dude, I love that.
And, um, yeah, it's never what's the goal?
It's how much pain are you willing to withstand?
Uh, it's, it's, you gotta, you gotta look at it from that side
of the fence to truly know.
And, you know, I, I, I really, truly learned that lesson.
Um.
Not very long ago.
Um, about about seven, maybe seven years ago.
I learned that lesson seven, eight years ago of the re I
knew reverse engineer, but.
I truly understood it with, with Ironman and, you know, sitting at,
sitting in the, in the audience.
Um, this is why events are so important, right?
Sitting in the audience in LA it was the last, uh, content and commerce
that, uh, digital marketer did.
It was their last one.
It was the, their best event.
It was better than trafficking conversion.
It was just content and commerce, and they had, Jesse Itzler was the
keynote and I, I tell everybody.
Like Jesse is the best from stage, and if anybody ever gets
a chance, they've gotta go.
They've got, you know, go see Jesse speak from stage.
And he said something to me, right, like 4,000 people in the audience,
he's talking to me and he says, the worst thing for us as humans is to
accomplish a major milestone in our life and not immediately reset the goal.
And I was like, damn, I just ran my first marathon.
This was a big deal.
Like running a marathon was a big deal for me because before
that I had only run 5K fun runs.
You know, beer, beer runs, that was it.
You know, the mud runs, the beer runs.
That was it.
We did it for team building.
We just had fun.
Um, we got hammered.
We just, we just, we just had a good time.
And
I knew he was talking to me, right?
Like, we've all had that moment, right?
We're in the, we're in the crowd and they're like, man, that
dude's speaking directly to me.
And you know, right after that I got a notification for the 10 year
anniversary of Ironman, Florida.
And um, I was like, man, what the hell is Ironman like?
I didn't even know.
I seen it on tv, but I didn't really, truly know what it was.
And I would have AI help me with this now, but I had to reverse engineer, right?
2.4 miles, 2.2 0.6 miles in the water, 112 miles on the bike.
A marathon.
Oh, I got that 20, 26 point.
I know that I got that 'cause I just did that.
I just did a marathon.
I understand what it takes to run a marathon, but 112 miles on the
bike and then swim over two miles.
Like I couldn't comprehend.
So I had to understand what it takes and the pain and the time
involved for that to be true.
And that's how we have to look at it, what it is that we're
trying to accomplish in our lives.
That's why I don't believe you commit and figure it out.
Because if I'd have said, yeah, I'm in then, but I, but I
wouldn't have understood the time.
'cause here's the thing, no matter what we do in life, it always comes back to time.
And I knew for me to be able to.
Finish my, I, I won't get into the story, but I ultimately, I tried
to, I tried to run a full Ironman.
On my, on my own.
And, um, because I ran a marathon on my own, I, I, you know, trained on my own.
I learned, I tried to do it all on my own.
And I had that aha in the mirror moment.
I'm like, dude, you're the biggest idiot on the planet.
You're a coach and like you're not getting a coach.
But when I got a coach, he had two rules.
We finish and we don't die.
Um, and that was it because it got two rules.
You finish and you don't die.
And so how do you build a plan to finish and not die?
And then I looked at it and I was like, okay, what's the time that
I need to finish and not die?
And, and for me it came out to be about 14 hours a week.
And so I was like, okay, where can I build 14 hours into the week?
Do I have the support?
And when I saw that, that was possible.
Then I knew I could commit.
And a lot of people don't.
That's why they fall short on accomplishing things is because
they don't take the time to understand what it's gonna take.
And then can they commit to that time?
Can they sacrifice to that time?
Um, and if more people would take the time to do that, they
would accomplish so much more.
And so it was just a aha moment for me and it's like, geez, I'm,
you know, been on this planet for almost 50 years and I didn't learn
that lesson until eight years ago.
So it's, it's just, you know, remarkable.
But that's, but that's also staying as student always,
always staying the student.
I'll give you the kind of a flip side of that one.
LA last year at Agent to CEOI did a little.
A little session, putting some of the principles into a thought experiment
that said, if I had to start from scratch and build a seven-figure real
estate team, so good, what would I do?
So I thought about it, this is, this is what I would do if it was me, right?
There's lots of ways to do it.
This is what I would do.
And it was, here's the lead sources I'm gonna use, here's
the VA team I'm gonna build.
And I had somebody ask me, um, having a drink, it might've been Travis.
I'm not sure.
Anyway, somebody asked me that that evening after the event was done.
I'm sure
it was Trav.
It was like, why, why don't you, why don't you do it?
Because at the time, I was, uh, COO at Sphere Rocket, and, um, you
know, what we're doing together now wasn't even on the radar really.
So why don't you do it?
And I said, I'm not willing to, I'm not willing to do what it takes to, to
actually build that team and do that.
I'm not willing to do the, the sales calls it's gonna take.
I'm not willing to do the evening showings.
It's gonna take.
Not willing to do the Saturday open houses that it's gonna
take to do that version of it.
Right.
I'm not willing to do that.
I, I know what it's gonna take and I'm not willing to do it.
And, and, and that's the answer.
So it's same, same principle, but you said, okay, I can, I can commit to this.
And I said, I'm not willing to commit to this.
Yeah.
It's about pain threshold, you know, are you willing to
withstand that amount of pain?
So it's, it's really good.
Um,
yeah.
And, and what are, and what are you willing to give up too, right?
Yeah.
That's the big thing.
Do it.
I wanna pause for a second.
I know.
Um, I wanna kind of keep it to the power hour.
Um.
I know we got Trav bouncing and out, look like he's traveling.
I know we got a couple other on here, but if, um, anybody has any, you know, if
you guys have any questions, let us know.
I mean, that's, we're going to, uh, stay consistent with this time
over the next few weeks leading up to agent to CEO in Cleveland.
But I do want to open it up for you guys.
I mean, Joel and I can talk.
All day, every day.
Um, it's what, what we do for a living.
But I do wanna open it up if you guys have any questions.
Trav, if you have any questions, I know Sarah and Marsha are, are, are on here.
If you guys have any questions, I mean, you can turn the camera on, turn your
mic on, ask engage into the conversation or you can throw it in the chat.
But anything that's on your mind, anything that you guys are wrestling with.
And here's the, here's, here's the reality.
We're all wrestling with something, it's just being, being strong and
vulnerable enough to throw the question out there because you're really truly
trying to, to solve the problem.
So, um, what I would always tell my team is, if you don't have a constraint,
you're not trying hard enough.
And it was just kind of a way to kick 'em in the kick in the
teeth a little bit to be like.
What am I truly wrestling with?
What is, what is stopping me from making progress?
And nine times outta 10, it's us.
It's, it's in our heads.
And that's why, you know, we start agent to CEO with agent to CO mindset.
And I'm, I'm super excited to who kind of positioning to talk to us about
mindset to kick things off because they're way more, they're, they're
way qualified to talk about it.
So, um.
I'll pause for a second.
I, I do wanna come to my, my sauna experience this morning, but, uh, yeah.
What, um, if anybody's got any questions, we would love to hear it.
It's like Travis bouncing in and out.
I.
Nope, we lost him.
All right, Joel, any thoughts?
Any other things?
Oh man.
Let's get into, uh, I wanna hear what you were, uh,
what you were getting from Gary V this
morning.
So, you know, me, I, I, I cycle, I cycle with Gary, um, kind of
depending upon where, where, you know, how, where he's at, right?
If he's on V Friends or if he's.
You know, where, where you know all the things that he's he's into, but when he
comes back around to, you know, talking, talking business, talking, um, I'll
dabble when he's back into the wine stuff.
But more so on the business side of things, I, I, you know, tuned right
back in and I was listening to one of his, um, keynotes that he posted about.
Last week, about six days, seven days ago in, um, on YouTube.
I tried to find it on the podcast.
He doesn't have it up on the podcast.
I think he has a little bit of a teaser.
I think he's doing a little bit of teaser trailer.
He might be trying to drive from, um, from Facebook or Instagram to YouTube.
So he's always testing things like that's why he's.
So important to pay attention to because he's such at the forefront of testing
things and being able to see things.
And um, I was, I was sitting in the sauna listening to the keynote and, um,
there, typically it's just me in there, but, uh, I got in there this morning.
There was another guy in there.
And I've got the, I got the earbuds on and I'm just, I'm just like
watching, watching, watching.
And, um, he, he taps me on the deal.
I'm just like, you know, dude, we're in towels.
Like, what are you doing man?
And, um, and so I, uh, I said, Hey, yeah.
And he's like, is that Gary V?
And I was like, yeah.
He's like.
Dude, I just, I, I, I just found him and I'm like, you just found him?
Like, what do you, like, you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years.
Like, what are you doing?
And, um, he goes, yeah, I'm, I'm big into collecting cards.
And he goes, I like his just obsession with cards and, and things like that.
And he starts going on and telling me, and I'm like, dude, that is so awesome.
But that's another lesson, right?
To where like you let your love and your hobbies and get out and you
just create the content around it and you never know who you're gonna grab
to be able to pull in and uh, uh.
I'll kind of lead into the whole point of what Gary's thinking about and the
thing that I know you and I are pushing and we're pushing on all of our clients.
And so we were kind of going back and I was like, yeah, that, that's cool.
And he said, how about you, whatever.
And I was like, I was like, dude, I go back to the 'cause he's talking about,
you know, then, then I understood that he loved the wine and I'm like.
I go back that far, I go back before crush it.
Well, I go back before crush it even came out and like he told us to go buy the
little camera that flipped open and had the little USB port that you plugged in.
And that was the camera.
And I said, I go back to those Gary V days and you know, I, I thought of
all the times that I almost pulled the trigger to go to New York to go there.
And I'm like, damn, why didn't I just pull the trigger and go?
But um.
The message was, was he was speaking to marketing agencies in the keynote.
You can go find it, it's seven days ago, but he's talking about 24 months.
And essentially what he's talking about is where AI will be in 24 months, that
you won't be able to recognize the AI influencers from the real influencers.
And he said, that's about the window that we have.
Not trying to play doomsday, not saying it's not gonna play out this
way, or it's gonna play out this way.
What I am saying is that the landscape is changing and
it's changing very, very fast.
We don't have time to sit back and coast.
You have to be diligent.
You have to be intentional, you have to be proactive, and you have
to be, how do I need to reinvent myself to where I don't get replaced?
I don't get wiped off the table.
Um, the other, the other statistic, I'll come back to Gary VI sent it to,
to, um, the Mastermind and I don't know Trav if you got to listen to it or Joel
if you listen to it, but it was the conversation with Brenda Bouchard and Ed
Millet last week, maybe two weeks ago.
It's a fantastic conversation around doubt and how to overcome
and how to reframe doubt.
And you talk about two best humans alive on the planet to reframe
anything and reframe doubt.
Ed Millet and Brenda Burchard, they're like the best on the planet.
It, and they didn't get into it, but Brendan said something at
the end of that conversation, it was about a 45 minute Ed's.
You can't say 45 minutes, maybe 20 minutes with all of his ads and
everything else inside of there, which is another, another thing.
But Brendan said, and so br Brendan's, like, you can argue maybe one of the
most connected humans on the planet.
I don't know how connected he is into the tech world.
I would love to hear, um.
You know, the, the, the Horowitz and, and, uh, you know, uh, side, side,
side of the world take on everything.
But he was saying about 18 months, I think is what he said,
maybe 12, maybe 18, maybe 24.
Um, I think it was 18 to 20, 24 months, 30% of the current
job population will be gone.
30%. So look at the number of jobs reported right now.
Subtract 30%, that's what's going to be changed.
I don't know if it's gone, I don't know if it, I don't know what it is,
but 30% of the jobs currently will not be available in 18 to 24 months.
Yeah, that's Brenda Bouchard saying that, that's his crystal ball.
I'm not, I'm not, I, I don't know enough to, to, to back that up
or, or poke holes in it or not.
But I take somebody like him that's saying that with Ed Millet
and then you listen to Gary V
talking about influence and talking about.
Legacy branding, legacy marketing.
And Gary's saying 24 months.
So what does that mean?
What that means is the next 12 to 18 months, everything's gonna be
completely different than it is today.
So what are you doing?
And if you understand, everything is a conveyor belt and there's
a constraint somewhere.
Results, behavior, feelings, thoughts, environment.
That's the results framework.
So if you're not getting in the rooms and you're not having conversations and
creating the right circumstances, you don't stand a chance on the results.
And what Gary, Gary was talking about is like, listen.
You have to have to focus on the creative more than anything.
That's what he was talking about and he's like, listen,
there's gonna be so much noise.
How do you break from the noise?
So my thought, and this is just a thought.
Maybe a be a recommendation, maybe you might really want to consider this is
go to VaynerMedia and you go Look at every company VaynerMedia is representing
who they're working with, and then go follow every one of those companies.
Gary's take is like, listen, this is the only thing we've bet on
the last 15 years of VaynerMedia.
Views
sales 'cause that's it.
He goes, the only thing we pay attention to is how many views are you getting
and how many sales is that equaling.
He said something that I love, he said, the only thing that I want you to judge
me on is the health of your business.
At the end of our agreement, the end of our time working together,
what is the health of your business?
Joel, you and I know what health means.
Health means how much cash do you have?
That's it.
How much cash do you have?
And cash is oxygen for your business?
How much oxygen do you have?
What's your oxygen level?
He said, that's the only thing, and people want to talk about this metric
and this metric and this metric, and this metric and this metric.
And he goes, I couldn't be simple to people because they want
to, like, they, they would've never allowed us in the door.
The only thing that matters.
And he goes, listen, do not spend a penny.
And I thought of you, Trav, don't spend a penny on ads until organically.
You have something that can actually get views.
When you have something organically that can get views, then you put
your marketing budget behind it.
But he goes, it's all about the creative.
All about the creative and what you have to, to make sure what you're
measuring is that your views equal sales.
And I was like.
Got it.
Like in typical Gear V fashion, like he'll say things that I like
and then he'll say things that go.
Got it.
So what I'm looking at, and this is what I want to push to everybody, is like
if you are not dominating our focused priority number one on organic social,
you have the wrong priority period.
Organic social, not paid, social, organic, social.
Understand the algorithms are playing to interest.
Are you creating enough stuff that's creating enough interest for your
target audience that has money?
Right.
There's buyers and sellers, but there's buyers and sellers that
are desperate that need money, and there's buyers that have money.
Stop playing with sellers that, that don't need the money and stop playing
with buyers that don't have any money.
Like, you gotta go where the money is, where's, where's, where's your money?
Go get your money.
Create views and and content for the people that have money.
That's the, that's, that's the, that's the filter, man.
And then you gotta make sure that those views are going to equal business metrics,
which are sales and that it's gonna get your company in a healthy position.
That was my lesson man this morning, listening to, to Gary, you know,
the, this sonic conversation.
But it was really like, like, dude, I, like, I pulled out the notes and
I just started rifting like crazy.
And so I. Yeah, that's where my head is.
Um, you know, always thinking like the CEO, right?
Just the agent to CEO mindset more than anything.
And listen, every day is a freaking battle.
Like every day is a battle and everything.
And there's a, there, there's, there's a distraction and there's a
reason not to go to work every day.
Joel, your son, sick.
You have, you have a reason, you have a reason not to get after it.
Today, Trav, we're, we're, we're all going through shit.
There's always a reason not to get after it every day,
but we also have a bigger reason why we gotta get after it every day.
Yeah.
And that's the leadership mentality because listen, there's so many
people that are looking to us for direction and so many people that are
looking to you for support, guidance, and Joel, what's, what's the word?
What, what is, what are people looking for from, from their leaders?
Hope
that's it.
Statistically 52 countries polled.
The number one thing people are looking for from their leaders is hope.
Is hope.
Now, hope's not a strategy, but hope in the way to being able
to paint a big, big vision.
And you know, you know, you know I'm a vision guy.
Without a vision, the village will perish.
And if people don't believe they can accomplish their dreams by being a
part of your vision, they're gone.
Discipline equals freedom.
You know, the thing with discipline.
You know, Mike Tyson said it best, right?
It's just doing the things you don't want to do that you know you need
to do when you don't wanna do it.
I mean, you just do, you just do the things required.
It's the, it, remember, it's the necessary required actions.
It's not the required actions, it's the necessary required actions.
It's the things, it's, it, it, it's the, it's the right.
KPIs is what it is.
And so I started to look.
Your content.
We know organic social is the number one thing.
I know the webinar people out there, I know the ad people out
there, they won't agree with me.
It is organic social views
that lead to a way to create engagement that lead to conversations that lead to.
Asking for and setting an appointment and meeting with people and
articulating your value in getting them to agree to work with you.
You don't need to worry about the rest if you just focused on this beginning part
and only the things within your control
and stop the noise.
That's it.
And remember, noise can't find you.
If they can't find you, they, they can't interrupt you.
I was talking with somebody earlier today, just like I go put my phone
on the charger in the other room and I'll come back three hours later.
Cool.
If they can't find you, they can't interrupt you.
A very high profile, a very expensive coach that she would kick my butt
every, every time I talked to her, and it was all around organic social.
Like, listen, I know it.
I know, I know it is right.
And I know it's the answer because that's where the eyeballs are, right?
We go where the attention is.
This is the best framework, and I got this from one of my, um, very
best friends, very dear friends.
Um, who's actually gonna be an agent to CEO, Mr. Blake Sloan.
It's the first time that him and I have ever been on stage together, and
what he teaches, I think is perfect.
He calls it the triangle, the social.
The social triangle.
Number one is people have to know that you're a real estate professional.
They have to know you're in real estate.
They have to know, they have to know that you sell houses.
They have to know that you help people, um, sell their home,
help people get into homes.
If you wanna work with investors, they need to know that.
They need to know.
If you work with builders, they need to know what you do.
You gotta pay the bills.
Number two is they need to know you're a good human being.
So what does that mean to you?
What is important to you?
Is your faith important to you?
Is your spirituality important to you?
Is your fitness important to you?
Is your mental, you know, fitness is your, is your emotional
is what is important to you?
What do you love?
What do what, what?
Can people know that you're a good human being?
And the third of the triangle is that you're an ambassador for your community.
You are showcasing all the things that you love, that people need to know about,
that they might, that they can't find on TripAdvisor about your community.
And that's the triangle.
You could do three posts a day.
One that you're in real estate, one that you're a good human, one, that
you're an ambassador for your community.
There you go.
The second thing that you, you, you need to think about.
I don't even know a second.
I don't even know if this is the right order.
I'd have to think about right things, right order.
What is your value proposition?
Who is your client?
Who do you work with?
So we have, I have a lifelong client.
She's a great friend.
Joel Trav?
No, her, her name's Renee Velasquez.
She's in, she's in, uh, northeastern Ohio.
She's in, outside of Cleveland area.
She specializes in, in families that are going through that last transition.
They've either.
Parents that are, that know this is the last move, so they gotta set it up.
Kiddos that take over or inherit.
Or it goes in being left off to a relative.
'cause there's no, there's no immediate siblings or things
like that, that's her specialty.
And, and so she has to create that content around who her ideal target audience is.
Well, we know obviously 50 and above is her target audience.
Well guess where 50 and above live.
50 and above live on Facebook.
So her platform has to be Facebook because that's where her audience is Now you're
like, Hey, I work with this demographic.
They're typically first time home buyers, or they're in this era,
or whatever, da da da, da, da.
I'd be willing to bet their own Instagram.
I would be 100% willing to bet they're on Instagram and TikTok.
So guess what?
Your audience and where you need to go all in would be Instagram and TikTok and
focus on what does it take to dominate and create, you know, content, relevant
content that is gonna get the most views.
On Instagram and TikTok.
Now, you don't have to come up with this on your own.
You have a, you have a good friend called ai.
Probably easier for you would be Chad, GPT.
And if you have not read the uh, AI Driven Leader, you have to read AI Driven Leader.
It's so fun to see everybody that's catching on and reading it and the
way they're talking about it and the way they're thinking about it.
But if you read Jeff, Jeff Wood's book.
Jeff with a g um, Jeff Wood's book, AI driven leader.
Then you'll start to understand how you use AI as your thought partner
and you start to ask it questions.
So you can go in and say, Hey, you know, this is my market.
This is my target audience.
This is my, my, my clientele.
This is who I love working with.
This is my skillset.
These are my strengths, these are my weaknesses.
Um, I would love for you to help me build out a campaign to target
and create consistent content to let people know I'm a real estate
agent, I'm a good human being, and I'm an ambassador for my community.
Ask me one question at a time until you have enough information to be
able to help me build out the perfect campaign to be able to target.
Just let it run.
And it's gonna, honestly, it'll, it'll, it'll give you everything you need
to know, but you have to be how you think about it and leverage AI as your
thought partner, not the thought leader.
You are the thought leader.
AI is the thought partner that's gonna help you overcome things that you like
are gonna exhaust your, all your brain cells and energy trying to figure out.
So I would.
Appreciate you brother Marcia.
Great.
Hopefully.
See you guys.
Bye.
Thanks for tuning in.
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